Welcome to Spring at the cabin! If you're joining me from Creekwood Hill or the Spring Home Love Blog Hop and are new to our story, here's a little background. My husband and I have been working to renovate this log home for the past three years. It's definitely been a labor of love because it is a huge fixer upper. You can see where we started with the house here and here. One of my favorite things about this house, what really got my attention when we found it, was its porches. So I will start our tour on the front porch!
My husband built this big table for me a couple of years ago. Entertaining around it is one of the things I enjoy most.
One of the things I appreciate about our property is the wide variety of trees, plants, and vines that I can gather to use in decor. I love to be able to use nature in my decor. It's beautiful and it's free! I started with gathering some Carolina Jasmine vines that grow wild everywhere in our area. I love its yellow flowers hanging down off the chandelier. If Carolina Jasmine doesn't grow in your area, I did find the plants available here.
I also dug up a lot of moss that grows in our yard to use as a table runner. You could easily buy bagged preserved moss to do this too. It might even be better because you won't have to shake off the dirt!
I added a centerpiece of tulip bulbs planted in a large bowl. I was going to buy cut tulips because I don't have any in my yard, but when I saw these blooming bulbs in the garden shop for the same price as cut flowers, I thought even better! Now I can plant these bulbs in the yard for next year.
I have a pretty large collection of vintage milk glass and I love to use it. I re-potted plants in a few of my milk glass bowls and added them to the moss runner.
I used milk glass bud vases as candle holders. The candles fit perfectly in the vases with smaller openings. To keep the candles stable in the vases with openings that were a little too large, I wrapped rubber bands around the bottom of the candle to give it grip and a little more size.
I added these four green ceramic birds I bought from Decor Steals a few years ago down the table. I've always loved their Springy green color.
And for the place setting, I kept it simple, with my everyday plates, vintage napkins, and these cute vintage green pressed glass dessert dishes. Those green dishes really inspired this entire table. When I found them in an antique store on a shopping trip with my Mom, I envisioned them here.
And here it is all lit up at night!
A couple of ferns on my pieces of oak tree were a simple addition to the door area of the porch.
On the other end of the porch is the cozy seating area. Remember those brown cushions I spray painted last Summer? I'm happy to report they have held up well! You can read all about how I did it here Summer Porch Refresh.
I just added some of the branches I trimmed off of our rose of sharon plants last week to a crock full of water and they have been leafing out! I'm curious to see what they can do here.
An interesting story about this crock, before Hurricane Matthew hit and flooded our house I had this crock full of flowers in this same spot. To prepare for winds we put a lot of things under the porch to protect them, having no idea that what we were actually going to get was 7' deep of muddy rushing floodwaters. A lot of those things washed away, but this crock stayed put under the porch, encased in mud. It's stained from the muddy water, but that makes it very special to me. I shared our flood story here in Floods and Stuff| What We've Been Up to Lately if you'd like to read it.
And can you believe I found this cozy afghan for only $4 at a thrift store last week? It hurt my heart to leave it there, thinking of all the work someone put into it a long time ago. I just love its vintage colors!
Heading into the mudroom, this bench is the perfect spot for some gathered forsythia branches.
And lastly, here in our master bedroom I added just a couple of touches of Spring.
Some romantic white tulips in another vintage milk glass vase on the bedside table.
And over on the fireplace, I keep this antique copper double broiler year round and add seasonal accents, like a lightweight throw and a touch of green with a plant.
Thanks so much for joining me on this little tour of Spring around our house. I truly appreciate you stopping by! Now head on over to see what Spring looks like at A House and A Dog.
And here's a list of all of the talented participants in this blog hop. Grab a cup of coffee and check them all out!